"Girls lunch and shopping with Fleur. She has a date tonight with a certain Mr William Weasley." Harry had to laugh again at the anti-British French Veela witch ending up living in London and chasing after a British wizard. It was nice to see God or Fate had a sense of humour with other people's lives and not just his own.
"So, what can we do for you, pup?" Sirius asked.
"Just checking in," Harry answered. "Something happened and they pulled Crowling out of class. I had a bit of time before I have to be on the pitch.
"What new with the shop?"
"Business was slow when we first reopened but it's picked up," Sirius answered. "Not a lot of traffic in the store but a lot of owl-orders. We upgraded the wards on the shop but it will be a while before people are comfortable walking in there." Harry frowned at the reminder.
Wards in public places were tricky things. In simple terms, wards acted like a Boolean search. 'Allow this but exclude that'. The caster had to identify the unique property that wanted to allow or exclude. Muggle-repelling wards made anyone below a certain level of magic forget where they were going and hurry off on another task. Anti-lycanthrope wards would prevent the entry by werewolves. Private residences could lock it down to the point that only blood members of the family could enter or layer their wards to prevent several scenarios. Public places couldn't do that as it could prevent honest customers from entering just because of the layering of the wards. Anti-Death Eater wards had never been released (at least publicly) and even then the Ministry would probably not have allowed it on the Alley as being 'unfair' to the 'Imperious-ed' Death Eaters of the last war.
The MME shop had several advanced wards but the Marauders made an oversight and failed to reinforce the building itself and, most tellingly, the front plate glass window. That oversight had cost two employees their lives. That oversight was now fixed. Remus had been talking about 'active counter-measures' whatever that meant. Harry's Pack Second just smiled and said to leave it all up to him when asked. Even pulling Alpha rank got Harry nothing. The shop's back room office and storage area was warded to prevent entry by non-employees unless specifically invited by Harry, Remus, or Sirius. That may not have saved the two wizards when the window shattered but it would have given them a refuge if they had survived that first attack.
"That's good," Harry acknowledged. "Anything else new?"
"They've stopped playing that Mirror clip so frequently," Sirius answered. "I won't say it has passed but it seems to be dropping off. The Death Eaters attacked two villages two days ago."
"I heard about that."
Sirius nodded. "One of our elves caught the attack on Havertown on his crystal. He recorded the entire twenty minute attack - including nine uses of the Cruciatus Curse, six rapes, and eighteen Killing Curses. The control room alerted the Aurors immediately and it still took them twenty minutes to respond. An old wizard who lived in the village, Alfred Dawlings, killed three Death Eaters - one with a knife - before being killed himself. The Ministry started holding him up as a hero until someone asked what the difference was between him and you." Harry frowned at that. The man deserved to be lauded for making his stand.
"The good news," Sirius continued, "is that these raids have diverted attention away from you." Harry had to agree that the raid did have a silver lining for him.
Harry started to comment when he noticed something peculiar in the Mirror. Her bowl of oatmeal now empty, the impatient Cassie was in the process of summoning more from the counter without the benefit of a bowl. The entire mass was just now moving over Padfoot's head. It sure wasn't accidental magic by the look of determination on her cute little face.
"Hey, Cassie!" Harry called out. Little Cassie's head turned at the sudden calling of her name breaking her concentration. The entire dripping mass came down on Sirius's head to the great delight of Cassie and her godfather.
"Damnit, Pronglet!" Sirius yelled as some of the oatmeal slid down the back of his shirt.
Harry grinned and said, "I did nothing. I was just saying hi to my darling goddaughter. You're the one to give her Marauder genes."
Sirius started to snicker and then laughed deep from his belly. Cassie started to laugh along with her Daddy not knowing why just that she was a good girl because she made Daddy laugh. When Sirius finally calmed down he said, "You did almost the same thing to James except it was pudding. He blamed me and said karma would give him revenge." He pointed at Harry. "Just remember that, Mr Jack!"
Harry's amusement broke. "I hope karma has done enough to me. I think I deserve a little good in return."
"Isn't that the truth," Sirius agreed. "Do you think you slept with her daughter in a past life and she's going for revenge? That's the kind of thing a woman would do."
"And what is that supposed to mean, Sirius Black?" a new voice asked. It was Kalina. Still dripping with oatmeal and his daughter cheerfully dumping some on her own head to emulate her Daddy, Sirius turned to face his pregnant wife.
"Hello, dear. How was shopping?" he asked innocently.
His humour suddenly restored, Harry cheerfully called out, "Well, I can see you're busy, Padfoot, so I will talk to you later. I hope." With a final wave to Sirius's look of betrayal and Kalina's amused glare, Harry closed the connection.
'Almost makes me glad I'm at Hogwarts,' Harry thought as he settled back for a kip.
.....
Join my p@treon and read ahead by more than 60+ chapters.
Link : [email protected]/InfinityWeaver
Free members can read the next two chapters for free on my p@treon